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Almost everything we know about the mysterious conch – which isn’t much – comes from the obsessive efforts of one Friedrich Schnell. This German scientist dedicated all his energies toward studying the conch in order to sublimate his desire to have sex with a train. The first and most pressing question he needed to address was this: Is there anything in there?

Is there?

It turns out what’s in there is a sea snail. This was a great disappointment to Schnell’s assistant, who had been hoping for gold. But yes, the conch is a snail, which means it is some kind of squishy thing that lives in a hard thing that it finds or maybe is part of its body or something. Look, I am not on trial in the court of Knowing How Snails Work here.

Special powers

If you – yes, even you – hold the conch up to your ear, you will hear it do an incredible impression of the ocean. It used to do several M*A*S*H characters too.

Weaknesses

The conch stopped doing the M*A*S*H impressions because all of its voices were based on the movie actors, and once the TV show had been out for a while, nobody really appreciated it any more.

Also, it is deep in debt to the wrong people. For a time, it worked as a boxer – even throwing a couple fights – to pay these criminals back. It was during this time it earned the nickname the “Florida fighting conch.”[1]

Number of legs

No one knows.

Instrument of the gods?

The conch has been said to be Triton’s trumpet, the divine horn of the preserver god Vishnu, and the cornet of Piggy, lord of all flies.[2]

Only the bit about it being the shankha is true. Triton actually preferred the street organ, and pigs can’t play wind instruments.

Pictured: Triton, messenger of the sea.

What if it fought a bear?

It thought it told you people those days are behind it. (see Weaknesses)

Is it noble?

Moderately.

Final rating

The conch makes beautiful music for at least one deity. But when it’s not doing that, it’s just being a boring snail. Even Friedrich Schnell, who devoted his life to learning its secrets, lost interest before he discovered much. Unless all those sketches of tank engines toward the end of his notes are related to this animal somehow.

5/10

[1]The conch is not from Florida, but the ring announcer felt this sounded better.